Women’s Foundation of Minnesota (WFM)

In recent years, it has embraced an intersectionality model, adding “gender-expansive people” to its definition of women, defining itself as an “anti-racist organization,” and expanding its focus to include “Black, Indigenous, communities of color (BIPOC), LGBTQ+ people, low-income families, people with disabilities, and women and girls in rural Minnesota.” ⁴

The WFM engages in its own advocacy, supports individuals and organizations that share its principles through grant programs, and operates donor-advised funds for third-party funders. ⁵ During the 2025 to 2026 federal immigration-enforcement surge in Minneapolis-St. Paul, the foundation launched an “Immigrant Rapid Response Fund” with the support of largely anonymous donors, reportedly receiving more than 100 grant requests for the fund.  ⁶

History and Background

The Women’s Foundation of Minnesota was founded in 1983 to promote broadly left-of-center policies on issues of special importance to women and girls, and has broadened that focus in recent years to “women, girls, and gender-expansive people.”  ^{4  7}

The WFM regularly identifies itself as the “very first statewide women’s foundation” in the United States, even though the Women’s Foundation of California was founded in 1980 and received its Internal Revenue Service charitable tax-exempt status in 1981, five years before the WFM did.  ^{8  9}

Leadership

The president and CEO of the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota is Gloria Perez, who took the position in 2009.  ¹⁰ She was previously the president and CEO of poverty-relief nonprofit Jeremiah Project. ¹⁰  In 2025, Perez received a reported $299,857 in total compensation from the WFM. ³

Perez succeeded left-of-center activist and labor union organizer Lee Roper-Batker, who led WFM between 2001 and 2009.  ¹¹

The WFM’s board chair is Anita Patel, vice president of grantmaking at the St. Paul-based Bush Foundation created in the 1950s by early 3M employee and investor Archibald Bush. ¹²

Other WFM board members with notable affiliations include Raichel Brown, senior manager for Corporate Responsibility at the Target Foundation; Mary Miklethun, senior VP and product lead for business deposits and lending at U.S. Bank; Best Buy Co. chief marketing officer Jennie Weber; former long-time Minneapolis Foundation president and CEO Sandy Vargas; and LaToya Jones Burrell, general counsel of animal-feed manufacturer Zinpro. ¹³

Intersectionality

The Women’s Foundation of Minnesota was created to focus on issues of importance to women and girls, with a mission focused on creating “gender equity.”  ⁷ In recent years, it has followed many other left-of-center organizations in embracing the philosophy of intersectionality, described by its strategic plan: “Intersectionality places an emphasis on race and centering the needs and experiences of Black women, Indigenous women, and women of color who experience the greatest harms as a result of policies, institutions, and systems.”  ⁴

In 2019, the WFM formalized its new intersectional approach by adding “racial equity” to its previous gender equity-focused mission. ⁴

In 2022, it formally declared itself “an anti-racist organization,” and its seven-year strategic plan adopted that year called for it to “end systemic inequities and drive innovation for gender and racial justice” and operate under a “Intersectional Equity and Anti-Racist leadership model.”  ¹⁴

That strategic plan refers to the organization’s founders and early activists as primarily being “white, politically liberal women of privilege,” although it does note that “women of color made major efforts to these movements.” ¹⁴

In a 2023 interview with Inside Philanthropy, president and CEO Gloria Perez described the WFM as “a philanthropic organization that has been rooted in capitalism and white supremacy.” ¹⁵

Influence in Minnesota Politics

The Women’s Foundation of Minnesota is influential in Minnesota politics, especially with elected officials of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party of Minnesota, that state’s affiliate of the Democratic Party. ¹⁶

In 2008, the State of Minnesota and City of Minneapolis declared October 28 of that year as “Women’s Foundation of Minnesota Day” in honor of the organization’s 25th anniversary. ¹⁴

Under former Gov. Mark Dayton (D), WFM launched the “Young Women’s Initiative of Minnesota” program within the governor’s office to create a “Young Women’s Cabinet” with members appointed by the governor and lieutenant governor that both advised elected officials on policy and directed more than $3 million in grants to individuals and organizations “to advance equity.” ¹⁷

Programs

The Women’s Foundation of Minnesota’s operations are broadly separated into advocacy and research, grantmaking, and growing donor support for left-of-center policies through donor-advised funds and donor identification and recruitment.  ³

Advocacy and Research

The Women’s Foundation of Minnesota operates a significant advocacy and communications function, including media relations, social media, grassroots engagement and activation, advertising, and other channels. ¹⁸

Its policy priorities include abortion access, countering domestic violence, mandatory paid family leave, taxpayer-funded child care, and opposing sex trafficking.  ²

The WFM was a major supporter of Minnesota’s Protect Reproductive Options (PRO) Act, signed into law by Gov. Tim Walz (D) in February 2023. ^{19  20} The law codified a state-level right to abortion.  ²⁰

In 2025, the WFM reported spending $460,796 of its $7.2 million program budget toward “research, education and public policy.” ³ It also reported spending $62,373 on lobbying Minnesota’s legislature. ³

Annual Research Report

Since 2009, the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota has conducted an annual research report called the “Status of Women & Girls+ in Minnesota,” formerly simply “Girls.” ²¹ The research is conducted with the University of Minnesota Humphrey School’s Center on Women, Gender, and Public Policy and is designed to “quantify and analyze barriers to gender and racial equity for women, girls, and gender-expansive people in Minnesota.”  ²¹ The research serves as the basis for an annual media relations campaign promoting  the WFM’s proposed policies, and is also used to inform the WFM’s grantmaking in the upcoming year.  ²¹

The 2024 version of the report focused on what it claimed was the third-largest racial wealth gap in the United States and largest Black-white home ownership gap of any metro region, as well as issues such as reported wage disparities between full-time working men and women, in which women made 81 percent of similarly situated men. ²²

Women’s Economic Security Act

In 2014, the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota led a coalition of left-of-center organizations including the AARP, the Minnesota Women’s Consortium, the Minnesota AFL-CIO, the ACLU of Minnesota, and Organizing for Action in support of the Women’s Economic Security Act. ²³ In addition to coordinating with these organizations, the WFM also reportedly made grants to other left-of-center organizations to enable activism and lobbying on behalf of the legislation.  ²³

This legislation raised the minimum wage, imposed new requirements on employers, broadened the scope of unemployment insurance, imposed equal pay requirements on larger state contractors, pressured employers to hire more women in leadership roles and traditionally male-dominated industries such as construction, and increased family leave.  ²³

Grant Programs

The Women’s Foundation of Minnesota makes grants to selected individuals and organizations that are aligned with its goals and principles.  ²⁴ Many of its grantmaking programs are invitation-only. ²⁴

In 2025, it reported making $2,090,123 in grants.  ³

Its active grantmaking areas include abortion and other areas of reproductive health policy, women’s health and safety, sex trafficking, entrepreneurship and career training for girls, workforce development for ethnic-minority communities, and leadership training for young women.  ²⁴

The WFM regularly donates to organizations that provide abortions, including Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota; the Wisconsin-based Freedom Fund, Inc.; Our Justice (formerly Pro-Choice Resources); and the Women’s Medical Fund.  ^{3  25  26}

The WFM has supported the nonprofit group Breaking Free, which works with women who escape prostitution and sex trafficking. ²⁷ The organization was criticized for allegedly misusing donor funds, including the use of organization housing intended to shelter women fleeing human trafficking and prostitution to instead house family members of its founder.  ²⁸ This led to donors, including for a time the WFM and the St. Paul Police Department, cutting off ties with the organization. ²⁸

Donor-Advised Funds and Donor Growth

The Women’s Foundation of Minnesota operates donor-advised funds that allow donors to support organizations and individuals approved by the WFM while keeping their support for those recipients secret, if they wish. ²⁹ As of March 2025, the WFM operated 75 active donor-advised funds with $8,561,830 in assets, and reported making grants of $2,103,440 through these tools as well as other funds it manages for third parties.  ³

It also operates campaigns to identify, attract, and grow left-of-center donors in Minnesota.  ²⁹

Funding of Opposition to Minnesota Immigration Law Enforcement

In response to the U.S. federal government’s “Operation Metro Surge” immigration law enforcement efforts in Minneapolis-St. Paul in late 2025 and early 2026, the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota launched an Immigrant Rapid Response Fund in January 2026 to provide grants to “trusted organizations responding to immigration-related emergencies across Minnesota.” ³⁰

The fund’s goal was to raise $5 million, and the WFM said that it would be distributing $3.75 million to 41 organizations across the first three rounds of weekly grants, beginning on January 23. ³⁰ By January 28, Inside Philanthropy reported that the WFM had received more than $5 million in requests from more than 100 immigration-related nonprofit groups. ⁶

While the WFM has not broadly identified the 32 institutional and individual donors to the fund, media coverage has identified the McKnight Foundation, the Bush Foundation, and the St. Paul and Minnesota Foundation as being among its funders. ³¹

Financials

The Women’s Foundation of Minnesota has grown notably since the early 2020s.  ³ It had never exceeded $6 million in annual revenues until 2023, when it reported $11,550,455 in revenue. It followed up that year with $7.7 million in 2024 and $9.1 million in 2025.  ³

Notable 2023 donations included $400,000 from the Tides Foundation, $373,715 from the Minneapolis Foundation, $300,000 from the Raymond James Charitable Endowment Fund, $250,000 from the Joyful Noise Charitable Foundation, and $116,350 from Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund.  ³²

Funders

The Women’s Foundation of Minnesota receives grant funding from a number of major foundations and operators of donor-advised funds, including the Tides Foundation, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, the Bush Foundation, the Ms. Foundation for Women, the New York Women’s Foundation, the United Philanthropy Forum, the Educational Credit Management Corporation (ECMC) Foundation, the St. Paul and Minnesota Foundation, the Minneapolis Foundation, the GS Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund For Wealth Management, the Raymond James Charitable Endowment Fund, the American Endowment Foundation, the National Philanthropic Trust, the Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program, the American Online Giving Foundation, Donor Advised Charitable Giving (DAFgiving360), and Thrivent Financial for Lutherans. ³²

In 2024, the WFN launched “Feminist Giving Day” in Minnesota, which it said raised more than $400,000 in donations. ³³

In 2025, the Minnesota Lynx WNBA team and musical group Bon Iver announced a multi-year partnership to “address gender inequities,” with the WFM identified as one of three nonprofits that would be promoted and supported through the partnership. ³⁴